The maintenance of an orderly linen closet in a residence has always posed a challenge of time and effort. Despite expending such effort to impose order, the chaos of a neglected linen closet often prevails. After a period of time, the closet contains a jumble of disordered and comingled sheets of various sizes.
Many approaches have been used in an attempt to solve the linen closet organization problem. One such approach is to construct an ordered array of compartments or cubicles or dividers to retain sheet sets within the closet space. Another approach is to utilize stacks of boxes for storage of sorted or separated sheets. Permanent compartments or dividers typically entail significant installation cost, limit flexibility of utilization of the closet space, and prevent easy reconfiguration thereof. Boxes, while permitting a greater degree of flexible reconfiguration, occupy and can waste significant storage space. Furthermore, utilization of boxes may be ineffective in deterring the careless or sloppy user. It is easy to envision an organized linen set being “separated” by members of a household, who rummage through a box or boxes when searching for a particular sheet or linen size. Linens rejected during such a search typically remain unfolded and are returned to the closet in a haphazard fashion.
Pre-sized plastic pouches, and particularly those with a closure such as a zipper, present a different set of problems. For example, difficulty in alignment may be encountered when inserting the sheet into a pouch. The person attempting to organize the linen, will experience further frustration when the fabric of the sheet set gets caught in a zipper, the bag or pouch fastener breaks, or the bag rips. Disposable or limited use bedding bags also are not ecologically friendly.
Other attempts have been suggested for the purpose of assisting in the organizing and identification of linens. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,886,227 (Reisner) describes a multi-component adjustable linen band for bundling and maintaining linens in an organized fashion by frictionally retaining bundled linen. US published application US 2010-0186274 depicts linear strips of a length sufficient to wrap around folded linens joined at the overlap and preferably pre-marked with particular linen sizes. The stated purpose of the described bands is to facilitate identification of the set or sets of linens.
It appears that there remains a need in the art for a linen organization expedient which provides efficiency, by saving time and labor, effectiveness, by minimizing subsequent disturbance of ordered sheet sets, and allows for repeated use.
While the prior art cited reflects approaches which are more or less effective for certain aspects of bed linen closet organization, there is still a need for a simple, multi-use, and durable linen closet organization adjunct that is reliable, requires a minimum of effort and labor to implement, and is capable of reliably securing and identifying multi-piece linen bundles.